The APSA Distinguished Award for Civic and Community Engagement is presented annually by the American Political Science Association (APSA) to honor significant civic or community engagement activity by a political scientist which merges knowledge and practice and has an impact outside of the profession or the academy.
Citation from the Award Committee:
The APSA Distinguished Award for Civic and Community Engagement Committee has unanimously selected Alison Rios Millett McCartney as this year’s winner of the Distinguished Award for Civic and Community Engagement. The significant singular contribution that was the basis of Dr. McCartney’s nomination, the Towson University-Baltimore County Public Schools Model United Nations (TU-BCPS Model UN) is impressive on so many different levels. Through the TU-BCPS Model UN, Dr. McCartney works with multiple constituencies at the university and in the public schools: administrators, faculty, staff, and most importantly, students. The work she leads beautifully enhances and complements conventional classroom instruction, for both college and high school students, as the students learn about global issues and the role of citizens in addressing them, as well as important research, speaking, deliberation, and negotiation skills as they train, prepare for, and participate in the Model UN conference each year. The project exemplifies democratic civic and community engagement, as college and high school students deliberate about the role of citizens in democracies, and at the United Nations, as well as in addressing current global dilemmas. Moreover, it is democratically engaging in its inclusivity: it is free to its participants and enrolls a majority of students—at both the college and high school level—who are economically or socially disadvantaged. The committee was particularly impressed by the many “downstream effects” of Dr. McCartney’s work: as college students act as trainers, coaches, and mentors for the high school students, the high school students design outcomes for the nations they represent at the Model UN conference and learn about college readiness and accessibility. And while this award is meant to recognize a singular contribution rather than the cumulative work of a career, this fully institutionalized partnership led by Dr. McCartney is the definition of enduring and cumulative, as the project has been ongoing—and growing—for over 20 years and has served over 5,500 high schoolers and hundreds of Towson University students. Our committee could not imagine a more worthy recipient of the APSA Distinguished Award for Civic and Community Engagement than Alison Rios Millett McCartney.
Alison Rios Millett McCartney is Dean of the Honors College and Professor of Political Science at Towson University (Baltimore, MD). A graduate of the University of Virginia (PhD and MA degrees, Foreign Affairs) and Syracuse University (BA, Political Science), her research focuses on youth civic engagement education. She is co-editor of three books published by APSA, Teaching Civic Engagement Globally (2021), Teaching Civic Engagement Across the Disciplines (2017), and Teaching Civic Engagement: From Student to Active Citizen (2013), several book chapters, journal articles, conference presentations, and webinars. She has mentored civic engagement teacher-scholars from Brazil, China, Mexico, South Korea, South Africa, and Europe serves as an international consultant on civic engagement pedagogy and research.
Dr. McCartney has received several awards, including the University of Maryland Board of Regents Faculty Award for Mentoring, the Towson University Outstanding Service-Learning Faculty award (twice), and the APSA Political Science Education Distinguished Service Award. She is President of the Maryland Collegiate Honors Council, member of the APSA Council, member of the APSA Presidential Task Force on Rethinking Political Science Education, past president of APSA’s Political Science Education section, founding faculty adviser for Towson University’s Undergraduate Research Club, member of the Executive Editorial Board of the Journal of Political Science Education and the editorial board of European Political Science, and co-creator and co-chair of the TU-Baltimore County Model United Nations program, a year-long, global experiential learning program which has served over 5000 Maryland high school students and 500 TU students.
APSA thanks the committee members for their service: Dr. Richard Battistoni (Chair) of Providence College, Dr. Jeremy Pressman of the University of Connecticut, Dr. Katherine Robiadek of Xavier University, Dr. Kenneth Meier of American University, and Dr. Zoe Nemerever of Auburn University